'Atlantis' episode 3 review: A bull leap in quality for BBC's drama

Sometimes, it's good to show a little faith - and we're not talking about prayers to the Greek gods. Just as this week's Atlantis sees our heroes forced to vault slathering beasties, so the show itself also takes a big leap.

Jason (Jack Donnelly) lands himself in trouble when he leaps to the aid of an old peasant being beaten by Heptarian - a sneery noble of royal blood. Dragged before Alexander Siddig's ruthless King Minos, our hero - plus his erstwhile chums Hercules and Pythagoras - are sentenced to serve as bull leapers and must dodge the deadly beasts in the city arena, for the entertainment for the baying masses...

Warriors facing death, arena politics and the ever-present threat of violence - 'A Boy of No Consequence' sees Atlantis transformed into a PG-rated Spartacus, right down to Sarah Parish filling the Lucy Lawless role of saucy schemer.

The bull leaping scenes are impressively staged - the odd moment of Mark Addy slapstick aside - and overall, there's a much-needed sense of action and peril present here that previous episodes of Atlantis have lacked.

The brutal murder of Cyrus (Ciaran Griffiths), for example, is genuinely shocking moment. Series masterminds Johnny Capps and Julian Murphy have spoken of their desire for Atlantis to emulate big-screen family blockbusters and this week, tonally, the show truly hits the mark for the first time.

'A Boy of No Consequence' also boasts a terrific guest cast - with Christopher Obi a clear standout as Nubian prince-turned-powerful warrior Shabaka. A comeback for Shabaka is a must - as a character, he certainly has more mileague than the smarmy, one-dimensional Heptarian.

Generally, the character work in this week's Atlantis is much-improved on previous week's efforts. Hercules was in real danger of becoming a one-note comedy buffoon, so it's a relief to see Mark Addy given a wider breadth of material to play here - the scene in which he passionately defends Jason to Minos is exactly the kind of thing we'd like to see more of.

Aiysha Hart - who until now has been required to do little except look pretty and regal as Princess Ariadne - also gets some meaty scenes this week, while Jemima Rooper's Medusa - though all-but-absent from the episode's first half - is neatly worked into the narrative later.

Atlantis hasn't ironed out all of its script bugs, of course - Pasiphae practicing black magic doesn't exactly help quell criticisms that the show is a poor man's Merlin.

You'd think that Greek mythology - with its gods and monsters - would be a rich enough source of inspiration that Atlantis could avoid delving into the realm of sorcery that its predecessor already ploughed so thoroughly.

It might also have been more satisfying if writer Howard Overman had had the confidence to kill off Emily Taaffe's tormented Elpis, while Jason is still a lad from the 21st century who speaks like he's from the 16th, with his modern-day roots feeling so irrelevant at this point that you almost wonder why they were included as part of his back-story at all.

But 'A Boy of No Consequence' remains the strongest Atlantis offering yet - a solid slice of Saturday night family entertainment, devoid of many - if not all - of the problems that have plagued the show in its previous two weeks.